Estimation of exposure criteria values for biliary polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon metabolite concentrations in white suckers (Catostomus commersoni)

A methodology was developed for deriving quantitative exposure criteria useful for comparing a site or a watershed to a reference condition and for defining the occurrence of extreme exposures. The prototype method used indicators of exposures to oil contamination and combustion by-products, naphthalene (NAPH)-type and benzo[a]pyrene (BaP)-type biliary metabolites from white suckers (Catostomus commersoni). The fish were collected from first- to third-order streams in the Regional Environmental Monitoring Assessment Program (REMAP) study of the Eastern Corn Belt Plains ecoregion at randomly selected sires and from third- or higher-order streams in conjunction with the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency (OEPA) Biomonitoring Program. which sampled sites of concern and reference sites selected by ecologists. The polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon metabolites were measured using fixed-wavelength fluorescence with excitation/emission pairs at 290/335 nm for NAPH-type and 380/430 nm for BaP-type metabolites. Exposure criteria values were selected for each type of metabolite for both the REMAP study and the OEPA reference sites following the recommendations of the International Federation of Clinical Chemistry. Exposure criteria derived for each metabolite were not significantly different for REMAP and OEPA reference sites. More than one half of the OEPA nonreference sites were found to be contaminated, exceeding criteria values for both types of metabolites. This method for finding meaningful exposure criteria can be used to develop criteria of exposure to other contaminants for other wildlife and other ecosystems.